Christmas in the Heartland

Christmas in the Heartland (aka The Christmas Trap) is an extraordinarily misguided holiday film. When two teenage girls who are each going to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to stay with their estranged grandparents meet on an airplane and become fast friends, they decide to switch places with each other to get a break from their normal lives. Ditching your family at Christmas to stay with complete strangers seems to be as far from the Christmas spirit as you can get, and that’s just one of a myriad of problems (there’s also a Christmas Day divorce). Still, there are few decent actors in the cast and the two leads aren’t that bad. Also, there are a couple of touching family moments. Yet despite its attempts at holiday spirit, Christmas in the Heartland is a convoluted mess that doesn’t work.